Tennessee manufacturing representatives are happy local schools are helping build a pool of future workers with knowledge in multiple engineering disciplines. Christy Brasher, an area manager at the Bridgestone tire plant in La Vergne, said her company regularly deals with a lack of qualified applicants.

With student debt growing and a mismatch between unemployed Americans' skills and the required expertise for available jobs, vocational education could be gaining steam, and high schools are rethinking whether they should usher students toward something other than traditional colleges.

When Title IX was signed into law June 23, 1972 by President Richard Nixon, it deemed that no person is to be denied access to an educational program or activity receiving federal assistance on the basis of sex.